“I wish somebody could be found who would…”

“…set the inner and outer data of this life in order and interpret it with the necessary psychological understanding.” When I set out to write on this site, all I wanted was relief from depression. I had already been lead to my ideological mentor, James Hillman, and renewed my wonder full relationship with Joseph Campbell’s work. I was learning about Jung and met wonder full people here.*

I read this Jung quote the other day and see countless examples of the lack of any sort of order and “necessary psychological understanding,” that is manifest in my world in particular and in the interactions and observations with others. This causes me consternation when I think that the dis-ease in the world is so rampant that we are sliding down a rabbit hole that we will not be able to get out of. Many would say that the environment is already that precarious.

“If you are all alone then it is because you isolate yourself; if you are humble enough you are never alone.” But then I read this and I realize that the basis of the almost hopelessness that is deep seated and comes from an unconscious place is usually one of my own mind’s making. Because I decide that I know the worlds problems so well that I understand the gravity of the situation. Yet if I continue that thought process out to the next level, I realize that I am doing nothing more than projecting my own dis ease out onto the rest of the world. Although many projections would be correct, my dis–ease would still make much of the analysis skewed and possibly incorrect.

But to take the quote above to a collective place, more and more I hear, from friends and others that we are more and more living these isolated lives. I am so grateful that I have my “meetings,” and peers from there, because if left to my own devices, I would tend to go towards isolation.

To me there is a difference between isolation and introversion. I truly think there is a part of me that is introverted, but I can and during the depths of my depression become isolated so bad, that it took my dear friend the Painter to come and get me and tell me that I had to go to the meeting with him. I would resist, even become angry and defiant, to try and not go with him, but I would always go.

Does that mean I am not humble? I would posit that Jung may have been referring to being humble possibly mean being open to listening to other’s ideas. Terrence Real said that the “only way out of covert depression is overt depression.? I may have taken it too literally, but I could not help being in the catatonic state I was in for over 4 years. No one in their right mind would choose to have their lives destroyed and there be a nothingness to their lives like I did. My dear friend willem3655 would not choose to be where he is today. There is too much evidence of the contrary by his material possessions and when he is not in the throes of his dis-ease, a joviality and light hearted-ness that he has.

I am left at the end of this post still wishing that there was someone who could “set the inner and outer data of this life in order and interpret it with the necessary psychological understanding.” I guess I will keep trying to find out answers to this journey and struggle we call life.